Introduction to Poker Fundamentals
Posted by Apoth
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the plan looks great! it is what I was looking for! building strong blocks!
a dedicated pro to help building strong fundamentals and help tackling complex stuff with classroom type vids!
welcome Chris!
I'd like to apologize that we didn't get to any true poker concepts today but I felt it was best to take some time to properly outline all the things I thought would be required as a good set of fundamentals and put them out there so that people can read up on them should they feel they're unfamiliar with them. While I understand that these are concepts that the overwhelming majority of you are already aware of and familiar with, my aim is to make sure that this material is accessible to all and that means starting (albeit briefly) at the very basics and moving forward from there.
This will also allow my future videos to be more efficient as I've now properly outlined everything I needed to outline and I can focus all future videos on being 100% poker content and not feel obligated to introduce math concepts along the way.
I'm excited to be here doing this type of work and I hope most of you will be able to get some useful info out of my series moving forward.
Im really glad you start with fundamentals at least for me is awesome. Great work Chris
I see Christmas came early, welcome!
My first question: I understand Bayes theorem as statiscal tool for big data and stuff like that, but do you make Bayesian inference while playing or do you see or can you share any pratical application of Bayes theorem in certain area of the game or certain type of game like MTT where sometimes history with players is very limited?
Not Chris but most of us make a Bayseian inference to some degree whether you're realizing it or not each time we sit down at the table. The guy who has played loosely for 10 hands so we start to widen our 3-bet range or call him down lighter, we are making an assumption based on prior history and we are using the Bayes theorem to some degree. You aren't sitting down and getting out a calculator or mapping a spread sheet of his overall range but you are using what you know to make an assumption of his play.
The post by erict87 is spot on. That's mostly what I want people to use it for.
right, It was what I thought about application of it. it put emphasize even more on the importance of making notes, get a feel of players tendencies etc...
I remember you from the other site and am really glad you chose to come here right around the time I also made the move! Always enjoyed your videos.
I think my most common application of Bayes' theorem is during live play. Admittedly I don't play much live but one can generally stereotype recreational players based on certain characteristics. Age, race, gender and whether or not someone is wearing an expensive watch or whether they are European or american tend to be reasonably good indicators of someone's play style.
Obviously your ability to do this online is somewhat limited, but the country that someone is from as well as stats you can dig up- ABI, ROI etc should help you make some preliminary estimations on their ability/mindset
Hey Chris, welcome :)
18:40 probability is not defined correct mathematically. Every observation of x can be seen as a Bernoulli trial, that is the outcome of each x is either 0 (failure) or 1 (success) with a probability of success being p(x). Therefore it should be n->infinity and not x-> infinity. In my own words: the probability of x is number of successes (number of 1s) divided by total number of observations when total number of observations go to infinity. That will make much more sense (and is correct) for you who haven't learned about probabilities before.
I also want to add to new players that don't give Bayes theorem too much time unless you are interested. As Chris says; all of you know how to use it, but don't know you are using it. If you anyway wanto to learn more I can suggest learning to understand the Monty Hall problem (google is your friend), it will make you understand the whole concept.
Right, as said regarding Bayes theorem I don't think I've ever actually worried about solving that equation in my head, I simply wanted to present it for completeness. I simply want people to understand it conceptually. The Monty Hall problem is a very good tool for understanding conditional probability.
Hi enjoyed the ideas here and as someone who plays for a living but hasn't had a lot of formal maths education ( graduated from university in history so stopped learning maths at 16, uk education lol) I am excited to see there might be something here for me.
I have tried to read mop several times and always fall when it gets to the more complex ( I know it's not complex maths ) notation etc so if this series or another you would like to make can help with that great.
Just as a note on your presentation style i enjoyed it and it seems you don't want to get bogged down with irrelevant points at times ( which is great) but I noticed a few times where you said something quickly to move onto the next point and just powered through the previous point sometimes mixing up the terms /message that can be confusing at times just a heads up not a critisicm.
Cheers
If you have no maths background then don't worry too much about Mathematics of Poker. You're right that it's not particularly advanced mathematically, but it does require a little bit of mathematical maturity to get through. Something like Theory of Poker by Sklansky could be better, although it's getting a bit old now. I also hear good things about Poker Math That Matters (Gaines).
And then, unless you're going to do theory work in poker, it's almost always more important to understand the concepts than the actual math (Chris also mentions this in the video). Most theory videos here should be potentially helpful in that regard.
I would say I am good 'maths' ( as in I have a good maths instinct?!?) but I didn't study it formally after 16 so don't always understand mathematic symbols and so have to trust what is written as being correct. I would love it if someone who is both good at maths and good at teaching to make a series explaining mop from scratch either by paraphrasing the notation into 'English' or even trying to explain the notation ( though obviously that is hard and I could just learn it myself ).
I remember reading theory of poker 10 years ago 50 times over and loved it the little maths in there was fine mop is a big step up.
I would say I do get poker theory and base a lot of my play on it.
It is an interesting topic though for sure.
Big fan of the set theory portion. It seems rather applicable when organizing sets of ranges in my mind or on paper when reviewing HH's. Does that seem like a reasonable way to start using it? Thanks for the video and looking forward to the rest.
That's exactly what I use it for and I'm glad to hear others are using it for the same purpsoes!
chris, I think you got your first mathematical definition wrong..
shouldn't it be p(x)=lim(n->infinity)n0/n rather than p(x)=lim(x->infinity)n0/n...? That is, I think you have set the limit as x tends to infiinity rather than as n tends to infinity..
Great Start. Thank You Chris.
PLS SPEND LESS TIME TALKING ABOUT YOURSELF. WE ARE WATCHING THIS TO FIND OUT ABOUT NLHE MTT. we dont really care why you have a reasonable skill disadvantage when playing PLO in the mixed games against skilled mixed game players.
good god did you just say at 4:00 that you go to vegas to punt off 10k in the main every year?
THEN WHY IN GAWD'S NAME ARE YOU BEING PAID TO MAKE AN MTT VIDEO, AND WHAT REASONABLE EXPECTATION COULD YOU HAVE THAT ANYONE WOULD WATCH IT AND BENEFIT?
this is really underwhelming thus far.
Hi Mr President glad to see you taking time away from wall building to come and learn poker gl at the tables.
hey Apotheosis as a guy before me said, there is an error on the definition of probability.
It should be n--->infinity not x. I am pretty sure that that equation as no sense with x.
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